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WSFX-TV
WSFX-TV is the FOX-affiliated TV station in Wilmington, North Carolina. The station broadcasts a HD DT signal on UHF ch. 30. While there is no over-the-air analog signal of the station, it can be seen on Time Warner & Charter cable ch. 9. For HD digital cable, the station is on Charter ch. 709 & Time Warner ch. 920. It's transmitter is located in Winnabow. WSFX is owned by Southeastern Media Holdings but operated through a shared service agreement (SSA) by Raycom Media. This makes it a sister station to NBC affiliate WECT. The 2 stations share studios on Shipyard Boulevard in downtown Wilmington. WSFX operates a translator, W19CA on ch. 19, that is licensed Lumberton. It's transmitter is located in Lumber Bridge. Syndicated programming on the station includes: Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Two and a Half Men & Divorce Court. History The station began on September 24, 1984 as WJKA-TV & affiliated with CBS. Prior to then, Wilmington was 1 of the few cities in the country without it's own CBS affiliate. Local cable systems carried either WTVD from Raleigh, WNCT-TV from Greenville or WBTW from Florence, South Carolina for CBS programming. In 1994, after CBS lost broadcasting rights of the NFL to FOX, WJKA dropped CBS in favor of FOX. In the process, the station changed it's call letters to the current WSFX-TV. Before then, cable systems offered either WLFL in Raleigh or WFAY in Fayetteville. Today's call letters stand for S'uper '''F'O'''X. This was because until 1996 it was the default FOX affiliate for the Florence / Myrtle Beach, South Carolina TV market as that area did not have an affiliate of it's own. However, WSFX's over-the-air signal does not reach Florence. The Pee Dee area thus had to rely on cable for FOX programming until WGSE-TV (now WFXB) in Myrtle Beach took the affiliation. As a result of WSFX's affiliation switch, Wilmington was without a CBS affiliate until March of 2000 when low-powered UPN station WILM-LD switched it's primary affiliation to CBS. In 2003, WSFX was sold to Southeastern Media Holdings & began to be operated by Raycom Media through a shared service agreement with WECT. The station then moved into WECT's studios. On May 8 2008, the FCC announced that 5 stations in Wilmington, including WSFX, had agreed to voluntarily cease analog broadcasting on September 8. This was 5 months ahead of the February 17, 2009 tentative date for TV stations to complete the analog-to-DT transition. The Wilmington market became the 1st in the US to convert to all-DT & will be used by the FCC as a transition test market. WSFX broadcasts from it's current pre-transition DT ch. #, 30. However, through the use of PSIP, DTV receivers will display WSFX's virtual ch. as 26. Newscasts As a CBS affiliate, WJKA operated on a shoestring budget with virtually no local news. In the mid-1980s, it had a weekday Noon show called Midday which offered news & entertainment reports. Since September 22 2003, WECT has been producing a nightly 10 PM newscast for WSFX. It's currently the only primetime newscast in the market. On September 13 2006, WECT began to produce an hour-long extension of it's weekday morning newscast @ 7 AM. On August 31 2008, WECT became the 1st station in Wilmington to launch their local news in HD. The launch came with a new graphics package & the WSFX broadcasts were included in the upgrade. Carolina in the Morning on FOX 26 (Weekday Mornings 7-8 AM) *Anchors: **Bob Townsend **Kim Ratcliff *Weather: **Eric Davis FOX 26 News @ 10 (10-10:30 PM) Weeknights *Anchor: **Jon Evans **Genevieve Barker *Weather: **Craig Carnesi *Sports: **Bob Bonner Weekends *Anchor: **Joe Keiley *Weather: **George Elliot *Sports **Kevin Hull WSFX uses additional news personnel from WECT. See that article for a complete listing. External links *WSFX-DT "FOX 26 News @ 10" *WECT-DT "WECT News"